NASCAR Officiating Needs To Meet New Expectations

Join Rant Report Fantasy | See the Previous Editorial

Going into weekend number three of the 2025 NASCAR season, there have seemingly been more officiating controversies than there have been races so far. Race winners disqualified hours after the checkered flag, the return of the phantom debris caution, races that should have ended under yellow, races that should have ended under green, and just overall inconsistency across the board.

Many have said that one of the greatest things about NASCAR was the hands-off nature of the sanctioning body, along with the “boys have at it” mantra. Despite that, it seemed to me that after Martinsville last fall, most race fans were ready for NASCAR take a step up with their officiating.

In the annual “State of the Sport” address, NASCAR’s COO Steve O’Donnell supported that sentiment, saying “so the era of ‘boys have at it’ no longer exists? I would say we have the greatest racing we’ve ever had in our history”. When commenting on the Martinsville controversy that was just a week prior at the time, he stated, “we will put things in place to make those calls going forward… the thing I would say is we’re not going to allow the integrity of the sport to be called into question”.

With that being the sentiment to end 2024, I had hoped that 2025 would have started off better than it has. The officiating at the end of the races so far this year, across all of the top three national series, could not have been more different. For each decision made, I can see both sides of each individual argument. The issue I have is that I don’t know what call is going to be made whenever I see the same incident reoccur. To put this idea of inconsistency into perspective, I gave my assessment on the end of each race so far this season.

Daytona Duel 1: One car into the wall on the backstretch. No wreck, no caution.
Daytona Duel 2: Multicar wreck between turn four and the tri-oval. 4.83 seconds between the start of the wreck and the caution being called, with only 0.86 seconds more needed for the leaders to reach the checkered flag under green.
Daytona Truck Race: Multicar wreck on the backstretch, no caution. Second multicar wreck in turn three 8.1 seconds later, caution thrown 5.89 seconds after the second wreck.
Daytona Xfinity Race: Multicar wreck in tri-oval as the leaders take the white. 2.66 seconds from the start of the wreck to the time of caution.
Daytona 500: Single car slides out of line into the infield. 5.1 seconds from spin to save, no caution. Multicar wreck on the backstretch. 22.04 seconds between start of wreck and the leaders taking the checkered, no caution.
Atlanta Truck Race: No wreck, no caution.
Atlanta Xfinity Race: Multicar wreck off turn two on the last lap. 18.09 seconds between the start of the wreck and the leader taking the checkered, no caution.
Atlanta Cup Race: Caution out with leaders in turn three on the last lap. Wreck is not shown in real time on television. From replays and further analysis, I estimate the caution was thrown 5.5 seconds after the wreck began, with the leaders hypothetically needing only 9.7 more seconds to finish the race under green.

Obviously, this is all over the place, but NASCAR usually always comes out with some sort of explanation after there’s any questionable decision made. Typically, I don’t have issue with those explanations. Even if I disagree with what they called, they usually do a good job justifying the decision they made.

Here’s the issue: there shouldn’t need to be any explanation at all. Yes, not everything in sports is black and white – there will always be subjectivity. However, there should be obvious boundaries outside of the subjective territory, and the officials should be consistent enough to narrow those subjective boundaries as much as possible.

Whenever I watch the NFL and there is a flag thrown for pass interference, I pretty much know what I am going to see before the replay is shown. Usually, it’ll be pretty clear that pass interference occurred, and I am able to understand why the flag was thrown. If the call is borderline, the television broadcast steps in to show additional replay angles and on occasion brings in a former official to explain the rules and give insight into why the call was made. Yes, sometimes the NFL referees get things wrong, but the level of consistency there is incomparable to NASCAR’s. Even still, that’s not enough for the NFL. In 2025, they will be replacing the “chain gang” with the Hawk-Eye virtual measurement system to ensure even further accuracy and consistency.

See Fox Sports: NFL plans to replace chains with Hawk-Eye virtual measurement in 2025

Why doesn’t NASCAR utilize these sorts of technical tools to help their officiating? Well, they actually already do. Every vehicle on track is communicating live telemetry data through SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) to the teams, the broadcast, and the officiating booth. Even though that information is available, it means nothing if it isn’t being used. A perfect example of this was at Richmond last spring.

During the final restart of last year’s Easter Sunday race, there was immediate controversy on whether or not Denny Hamlin jumped the final restart, by launching early and outside of the restart zone. On replay, it very much appears as if he does, but no call was made and Hamlin went on to win the race. Hamlin himself dissected the incident on his podcast, addressing the fact that it is well known there is flexibility on the enforcement of this rule.

See Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin: The Final Restart at Richmond: Did Denny Jump?

Why is there flexibility? There’s a clear line on the track and they monitor the data live, right? If you don’t call it straight up by the book, there is subjectivity introduced that is unnecessary. This is a perfect example of something that NASCAR has the ability to call black and white, but they voluntarily make it convoluted.

Let’s now take a look ahead, and make a prediction. At some point during the race tomorrow at Circuit of the Americas, there is going to be in-car camera footage going around social media of a driver cutting the esses and it not getting called. Again, I need to ask why this is going to happen. If they have the ability to officiate it sometimes, they should have the ability to officiate it all the time.

In both instances brought up here, it couldn’t be easier to officiate, it’s a line. You’re either on one side of it or the other. Let’s add two more lines into the mix – the double yellow line at superspeedways. There have been numerous times when it has looked like drivers have broken the double yellow line rule without it being called. Again, to me, that should be something that is very easy to identify. It either happened or it didn’t. Another issue I have with the double yellow line rule is that there is a different definition of track limits here than at other tracks. For example, unlike at COTA, I do not think you need to go completely across the line with all four tires to be nabbed by this rule. The fact that I am not sure of that, even as a dedicated fan who watches every week, brings me to my next topic.

NASCAR is the only major sports league that does not publish their rulebook. I know that the average fan isn’t going to be referencing the series regulations while watching a race, but by making that information privileged, the only people who are able to hold the sanctioning body accountable for bad decision making are those that they have leverage over through the threat of revoking access. NASCAR has a history of bringing down a heavy fist to those who speak negatively about the sport, but that’s a topic for another day.

Just for reference, here are the other leagues and organizations who have their rulebooks online for public reference:
Motorsports Leagues: NTT IndyCar Series, NHRA, World of Outlaws, IMSA, and all FIA sanctioned series, including Formula 1, Formula E, WEC, WRC, World RX, and over 25 more.
Major Sports Leagues: NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS
Other Sports Leagues: IFL, MASL, NLL, NFHS, PLL, PWHL, UFA, UFL, WNBA

Check out the previous Editorial:
My 2025 NASCAR Predictions

To summarize my thoughts here, it’s frustrating because I don’t think the level of improvement being asked for is that difficult to achieve. It worries me for the future that if these controversies continue to happen, the world of sports betting is not going to look fondly upon a lackadaisical interpretation of black and white rules. In the NASCAR media there is so much talk about the scales between fair sporting and entertainment value, but no matter how that ends up balancing out, it needs to stay steady or else the fans aren’t going to put up with it. It’s one thing when it’s just your driver losing, but when you start losing your own money due to questionable officiating, you may just stop tuning in.

I don’t want to just go online and being another complainer in the wind without offering some viable solutions. To start, as I’ve said already, the black and white type calls need to be cracked down upon. I’m not asking for subjective interpretation of vehicle contact or race manipulation infractions quite yet. Yeah, those are big issues, but let’s start with the easy things because not every hypothetical scenario can be put into the rulebook – let’s start by enforcing the ones that are there. The three issues I discussed: restart violations, track limits, and the double yellow line rule, are all improvements that can be made right now with the existing technology I know they already have, or maybe with just a few more pairs of eyes. (psst, NASCAR, I’ll do it, hire me!)

Let’s go back to address what prompted today’s discussion: inconsistent caution calling. Drivers and fans alike can typically come to agreement on what does and doesn’t warrant a caution, and I think the officiating booth does too, they just let other factors play into the decision to put out the yellow. Overall, for safety reasons, I say cautions are cautions, and they all need to be thrown regardless of what lap of the race it is. That being said, I still want green flag finishes as much as possible and I don’t want a quick finger ending a race to soon, as it did in the second of the Duel races this year.

As I was assessing the end of each race this year, the number that I found the most interesting was the time between the wreck beginning and the caution coming out. That is purely a number rooted in human decision making, but it is critical in all of these scenarios. When the caution is thrown too hastily, the race can be ruined, again like in this year’s Duel race, but when it takes too long, like the Xfinity race at Atlanta, there are safety concerns that come into play.

To start the first of my two proposals, I would like a mathematical analysis to be done on the dataset for that time to caution number. (Perhaps in a later editorial?) With some simple software, a reasonable delay could be put within the caution calling process to prevent a trigger-happy official from ruining the end of a race. Using SMT data, the estimated time to race completion could be calculated based on lap times and track position. Just to hypothesize for now, since I don’t know the numbers yet, I’ll propose a system that would prevent the caution from coming out if the estimated time to race completion is within one or two standard deviations of the mean time to caution. In simpler terms, if it’s close, and the viewers and drivers won’t be phased by the delay based on historical data, don’t throw the yellow and let the race get to the line. The implemented delay would theoretically never be longer than any variable human delay that is already expected.

The second of my two proposals is one I’m actually stealing from others in the NASCAR media, which is to use SMT data to penalize drivers for not taking precautions when navigating wrecks. There is some subjectiveness to this, but there could be clear lines drawn as a basis. For example, if your current position is behind where the wreck occurred and you did not slow your vehicle after the wreck began, you should be penalized. When this idea was brought up, a common response was “well, if it’s the last lap, they’re just going to drive through it anyways”. I say no, they won’t, not if the league were to actually enforce it.

I know that both of these ideas have holes in them, but my intention is to propose solutions that would not have broad scale ripple effects through implementation, as for example getting rid of overtime would. As the season goes on, I hope to come back to these ideas and break down the realism of them.

Overall, I want to see drivers stay safe and have races finish under green. Both are difficult tasks, but not impossible ones. To start though, I just want NASCAR to step up their officiating game, eliminate gray area, and start building a foundation of consistency.

EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix Television Schedule:

TODAY - Saturday, March 1
11 a.m., NASCAR Cup Series: Practice and Qualifying at Circuit of The Americas, Prime Video
2 p.m., NASCAR Countdown Live: NXS, The CW
2:30 p.m., NASCAR Xfinity Series: Focused Health 250 at Circuit of The Americas, The CW

TOMORROW - Sunday, March 2
2:30 p.m., NASCAR RaceDay, FOX
3:30 p.m., NASCAR Cup Series: EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of The Americas, FOX

Join Rant Report Fantasy | See the Previous Editorial